The disclosures herein relate in general to digital image processing, and in particular to a method, system and computer program product for switching between 2D and 3D coding of a video sequence of images.
A stereoscopic image is formed by a left view and its associated (temporally co-located) right view, which correspond to one another as a matched pair of views. For asymmetric three-dimensional (“3D”) video coding of a stereoscopic image: (a) a lower bitrate may be achieved by encoding one of the views (e.g., either the left view or the right view) at a lower resolution; and (b) overall sharpness may be dominated by the other view, which is encoded at a higher resolution. Nevertheless, asymmetric 3D video coding may introduce various types of artifacts (e.g., blocking and smoothing), which can diminish such coding's quality. For example, such diminished quality can strain the human's viewing of a corresponding decoded image with 3D effect on a stereoscopic display screen, thereby causing the human's eventual discomfort (e.g., headaches and/or eye muscle pain).